Reptilia · Squamata
Trachylepis variegataPeters, 1870
Variegated Skink
Photograph by nearwildhelen, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating skink from the Afrotropic region, reaching 57 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Mabuya variegata — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Trachylepis
- Grows to
- 57mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous, terrestrial
Longer than only 28% of all skinks anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 24 to 500 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
38 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2019
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 34.05°C93 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 33.6–34.5°C92–94 °F
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 57mm2.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 40.9mm1.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 40.9mm1.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 19mm0.7 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 19mm0.7 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 3.64g0.13 oz
max 57 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Grassland, Rocky, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 850m
- Range size
- 906,914km²
Arthropods (e.g., Vitt and Pianka 1977)
Cooper and Whiting 2000, Mesquita et al. 2016, Butler 2005
Huey and Pianka 2007
Saxicolous / Terrestrial and Arboreal (Pianka 1986) / mainly terrestrial (Vitt and Pianka 1977)/terrestrial (Mesquita et al. 2016), saxicolous (Foster et al. 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 2.32eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–12eggs
- Mean clutch
- 1.83–2.8eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
(Branch 1998, Vitt and Pianka 1977, Goldberg 2006), Broadley 2000. Pianka and Vitt 2003 say oviparous
1-6, mean 2.8 (Goldberg 2006, who said Fitzsimons reported 4-12), mean 1.83 (Mesquita et al. 2016), 2-4 (Branch 2016)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Peters
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1870
- Type locality
- Namibia
Keeping one
9 in × 9 in × 9 in(23 × 23 × 23 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 and climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own snout-vent length of 2.25 in (57 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 93 °F (34.1 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
Feeding
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
1kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 4 g, the heaviest recorded for Variegated Skink — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches in a year
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Scincidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Trachylepis variegata. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/trachylepis-variegata
@misc{trachylepis_variegata_2026,
title = {Trachylepis variegata},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/trachylepis-variegata}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.